Not Ours in Cringing, Yours In Communion - Maundy Thursday
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
March 28, 2024
Way back in the wilderness, in the beginning of his ministry,
Jesus was given three temptations. “All this can be yours- all of these
kingdoms,” Satan says. “I can give them to you.” Then on Palm Sunday we
remembered that people wanted to make Jesus a king. They thought he was riding
in to victory. And yet, he chose humility.
When Jesus was alone in the wilderness, he was starving for forty
days without food. “Go ahead, feed yourself. Take care of YOU,” Satan says. But
he remains steadfast, strengthened by angels. And now here we are this night,
when Jesus has every reason to feed himself, taking what we would say he needs,
which is not these disciples or this walk. He knows what lies ahead and he
cares for his friends, tending to their brokenness on the eve of his body
broken. Even Judas. And then he feeds his friends. In the verses we do not read
this night in the gospel of John we hear the story of this night includes Jesus
then telling Judas, “Go quickly, and do what you are doing.” “Go quickly,”
Jesus says, as if it is almost a prayer, to get the ball rolling so Jesus won’t
change his mind. To take what he needs.
Here we are as Jesus, confounds us, kneeling at our feet. To care
for us as he did the disciples, meeting us in our brokenness.
I invite you to imagine Jesus on his knees looking up at you. If
Jesus was holding your foot, and looking into your eyes and your hearts, what
would he see? What do you see?
It is here that we realize just how much we have to learn about
love. Not in the abstract, but the personal, the “too personal.” The “hard to
hold, but so desperately needed” personal.
“Almighty God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known,
from whom no secrets are hid,” begins a version of our Confession.
Walter Brueggeman in his poem similarly named writes,
“We engage in subterfuge…carry old secrets too burdensome to
bear…failures we cannot undo…alienations we regret but cannot fix… and you know
them, you know them all.”[1]
And so I wonder does Peter object to Jesus’ act of love because
it was beneath Jesus, or because Jesus this close was too powerful?
“Lord, we don’t know what you are doing.”
Even later we barely grasp it. But if we stay here just a little
longer, Brueggman writes “then we find that your knowing is more powerful than
our secrets. You know and do not turn away.”[2] Indeed, isn’t it our greatest fear for ourselves that everyone, even God, would
turn away from us?
This is such good news, that Jesus stays in love. And this night
Jesus will feed us too, reminding us of his body and his blood given and shed
for us, for the same reason he fed his friends- forgiveness. For what he knew
they were hiding and for what they would do.
Friends, “in this night we hear the healing power of love. That
our secrets that seemed to powerful are emptied of strength. Secrets that
seemed to burdensome are now less severe.” Jesus, “we marvel that you find us
and when you find us out, you stay with us. Taking us seriously. Taking our
secrets soberly, but ultimately overpowering our little failures with your
massive love and abiding patience. We long to be fully and honestly exposed to
your gaze of gentleness. In the moment of your knowing, we are eased, and
lightened and we feel the surge of joy move through our bodies because we are
not ours in cringing, but yours in communion.” [3]
We are yours. And we find the truth… makes us free for wonder,
love and praise, new life. Overcoming the temptation for all of us, when we
ponder our siblings in the world- to turn away. Because we know we could, and
we have and we will as we continue to try to save ourselves.
This week, tomorrow, we’ll remember that third temptation Jesus
faced. “If you are the son of God, save yourself,” is what Jesus will hear
after he has been lifted up on a cross. This temptation perhaps is a repeat of
“throw yourself down from this high point, God will save you.”
And yet even in the face of others imploring or mocking, “Save
yourself and us,” Jesus chooses to love. He does save us, but in the way that
we need to be saved. Not by serving ourselves, but by letting ourselves be
given in service. After those temptations in the wilderness, Satan left for a
“more opportune time” and thought that now in betrayal and arrest, torture, and
abandonment, Jesus’ love will have limits. But it did not and does not.
We gather again this night to remember that Jesus meets us here,
even in the places we would rather not be met, if we’re honest. He meets us in
love. We can celebrate the God who overcomes even the most opportune moment to
choose something other than us. Jesus shows up with love to choose us and teach
us humility and to command us to love.
We can hear him as he spoke with those disciples, speak to us,
calling us to dare to love deeply too. Telling us when we do the things we know
he has taught, we will be blessed. And when we hold the bread and the cup, they
remind us to continue believing that no secrets are hid from the God who is
Almighty, but always chooses to hold onto us when we feel hard to hold, to love
us into new life, and command us to help him love others into this life too, no
matter how much we are tempted and otherwise.
Gospel Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35
1Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus
knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2The devil had already put it into the heart of
Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all
things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4got up from the table, took off his outer robe,
and tied a towel around himself. 5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was
tied around him.
6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never
wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet
only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is
entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; for this
reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12After he had washed their
feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed
your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an
example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not
greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent
them. 17If you know these things, you
are blessed if you do them.”
31b“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in
him. 32If God has been glorified in
him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33Little children, I am with you only a little
longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have
loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love
for one another.”
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All
rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written
permission.
[1] “Almighty God From
Whom No Secrets Are Hid,” Walter
Brueggeman, Prayers for a Privileged People
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
BACK